Nicholas Stuart is a columnist with the Canberra Times.
Nick Stuart has written three books,
Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography;
What Goes Up: Behind the 2007 Election; and
Rudd's Way: November 2007 - June 2010.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

DEFENCE SPENDING

Being in Opposition allows a politician to be critical.

But managing to find the answers is another thing entirely, as this column dissecting a recent Tony Abbott speech in Washington suggests . . .

NOT A LIE IN SIGHT . . .

Tony Abbott relished the
opportunity the question provided. “As a result of defence cuts in the recent
budget”, he insisted, “Australia’s defence
spending as a percentage of gross domestic product is now at the lowest level
since - wait for it - 1938. So that is quite a concern.” High, high above, a
pig soared gracefully in the Washington air. It prepared to loop-the-loop above
the Heritage Foundation.

“We do not live in a benign environment”, Abbott
continued. “We do not live in benign times.” Really? Booming trade with China. Osama
bin Laden dead. Al Qaeda diminished. The pig continued its ascent. But it was
obvious the rhetoric was becoming too detached from reality. There was a need
to ground the flight of fancy.

“I do think”, Tony Abbott
continued, “that it is irresponsible to save money in Defence in a way that
compromises your military capacity”. Ah. The pig zoomed swiftly down, floating
in and landing gently in a flowered meadow nearby.

It’s fashionable, on the Labor
side, to accuse Abbott of lacking political subtlety. Yet his brief speech in
Washington demonstrated exactly how sophisticated and canny his political
abilities are. Deconstruct exactly what he achieved in a few, brief days.

He was in Washington to attend
the Australian-American “leadership dialogue”. This is nothing more than the
equivalent of an internet chat room made physical in a big hotel; one where
lots of particularly self-important people can sit around and enjoy pompously
shootin’ the breeze with one another. Nobody had ever heard about the talkfest
until Kevin Rudd, then a backbencher working the numbers against Kim Beazley,
attended the forum to demonstrate his own impeccably conservative credentials.
It worked a treat for him. That’s why he was there, again, this week. Abbott is
just repeating the trick.

He also had to show everyone that
he was in Washington and being treated seriously. Unfortunately, however, the
White House wouldn’t oblige. No matter how much Abbott’s a shoe-in to be our
next Prime Minister; no matter how much America wants Australia to step-up to
the plate and increase defence spending, Barack Obama isn’t going to do any
favours for a right-winger. So how to get the message out?

Fortunately the conservative
Heritage Foundation stepped into the breach. More identified with Ronald Regan
than the most recent George Bush, this institute propounds right-wing ideology
with the same fervour that the USSR once propounded international communism in
the fiercest days of the cold war. The Foundation’s motto (“Leadership for
America”) implies the need for minutemen to be ready to spring to arms to
defend the constitution. Taking a broader approach, however, has reinvigorated
the institution.It’s thrown off
the old, left/right dichotomies of the past.

This approach led the Foundation
to extol Australia in its Index of Economic Freedom. We’re placed third in the
world (behind Hong Kong and Singapore, but well in front of the US, relegated
to tenth place). Importantly, research suggests major gains have been achieved
since Labor came to power in 2007. It particularly praises, for example, the
way the current government’s limited its spending. This is the sort of manna you’d
expect Julia Gillard to highlight when she responded to Abbott’s attack . . .
but you’d be disappointed. She can’t understand nuance. Her world appears as
utterly divided into black and white as Abbott’s. Perhaps one day, in the far
distant future, a politician will be able to perceive the full palette of
colour once again. Not, I fear, in my lifetime.

And that’s why the Foundation ‘invited’
the Opposition leader: to provide him with a platform. Blood, particularly
right-wing blood, is thicker than either water or economic freedom. But hunt
through Abbott’s speech for anything interesting to report and you’ll be
disappointed. Apart, perhaps, from his recitation of the quotation from the
words inscribed on the statue of liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled
masses, yearning to breathe free.” Abbott pointed out that, “English-speaking
countries have beckoned to people everywhere, especially in troubled times”. He
must have been confused. We don’t, apparently, want asylum seekers and the
Americans don’t want people crossing the Mexican border. Maybe the trick is to divorce your words
from the policies such noble sentiments would appear to require. Because this
appears to be the moral of all his subsequent huffing and puffing on defence.

The speech itself
was just tosh and padding. Mind you, some of the jokes were good. Like the one
about when Abbott went to Washington with a program organised by a US agency. They’d
been told he was a “Liberal” and “strongly anti-republican” but assumed that
this meant he was liberal (socialist) and virulently anti-Republican
(non-conservative) and so his program was filled with meetings with American
leftists. This anecdote demonstrates perfectly how we are divided from the US by
more than just a common language. Abbott’s speech, however, extolled our
‘special’ relationship with anodyne phrases. “Our [common] objectives”, he
said, “are to promote trade, prevent aggression and, where possible, to foster
democracy based on the rule of law.” Abbott could give exactly the same speech
in Beijing.

Abbott could have used his speech
to commit to beefing up our military: but he didn’t. And for a very good
reason, too. That would require detail. Committing to a force structure.
Guaranteed expenditure commitments. These are just the sort of things Abbott’s
determined to avoid. So he waited until the question and answer session and it
was these words that hit the headlines. Later, when asked for specifics, he ran
a mile. “I don't want to put figures on [defence
spending]. I just want to say it's not what you spend but what you deliver.
That's the important thing.” Again, just generalities and feel-good, warm
reassurance. Trust me, it’ll be OK.

But don’t think this means any more money will be
spent on the services. The good times are gone for good. The astute analyst
Ross Babbage has already carefully pointed out exactly why Rudd’s grand
submarine fleet will be the first formation facing the chop. The cuts won’t
stop there. If any star-ranked officer seriously believes Abbott will divert
money from hospitals and tax-cuts to the military, they need their head read. Re-examine
the caveat in what Abbott said. There will, definitely, be further cuts; it’s
only irresponsible to save money “in a way that compromises” military
capacity.

Just imagine how many dollars we
can save without making such compromises. It’s all a matter of definition.